Basically, this case is how most people who apply for a license to carry (LTC) get it (even though MA is a may-issue state), but people who live in Boston (and Brookline) routinely get denied, especially if they're not doctors or lawyers. The LTC is good state-wide, so people who live in MA but don't live in Boston can carry in Boston. However, people who live in Boston can't carry anywhere. Boston's practice is effectively a carry ban, and the licensing law is unequally applied.

As for the oral arguments, I think the plaintiff's lawyer did a poor job responding to the judge's questions about what confrontations would not require a firearm for defense, as the Heller decision pointed out that not all confrontations require a firearm to resolve. The lawyer seemed focused on Heller meaning that people can't justifiably carry and use firearms to commit crimes. (A better argument is people can't justifiably use lethal force if their lives aren't in danger, because then it's a crime. So I don't think he made his point.) He did better during rebuttal of the defendants' oral arguments that banning guns in Boston makes everyone safer.

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.- Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, 1960.

Gould lost on Friday, November 2nd, because the court of appeals held that the “core right” in Heller is limited to the home saying, “To sum up, we hold that the core right protected by the Second Amendment is — as Heller described it — “the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.” 554 U.S. at 635. Public carriage of firearms for self-defense falls outside the perimeter of this core right.”

There is only one other SCOTUS Rule 10 court which has limited the Second Amendment “core right” to the home, the State of Maryland high court which held in 2011 “If the Supreme Court, in this dicta, meant its holding to extend beyond home possession, it will need to say so more plainly.” Williams v. State, 10 A. 3d 1167 – Md: Court of Appeals (2011) at 1177. (The Court of Appeals of Maryland is the supreme court of the U.S. state of Maryland.)